I’ve always worn caramel brown boots. I first spotted them, then again, and again, on the feet of great men, dressed in bronze, and held forever as statues. This permanence, I have declared, must begin from the ground up. I personally, started my legacy with this image of their caramel brown boots. After losing my preferred hand to hold, I’ve come to make fists in my jacket pockets while waiting at bus stops in the rain. In less than ten minutes the windows on the Kung Fu studio across the street fogged up. I remember knowing what I wanted to tell him as soon as the steam made faint shadows of the defensive acrobatics inside. You don’t need an interesting life. You should strive for interesting eyes. I wanted to see a girl running from an attacker, I wanted her to take cover inside the Karate studio. I wanted her strength, her push, her escape, to fog the windows. To both hide her and make her stronger. I wanted her to take a class then and there. I wanted her to offer twice the price because she didn’t have a thick white robe with a colored belt, or enough money to make short of the elephant in the room. The elephant being the acceptance that she would be learning self defense in some wet smelly jeans this early December storm and Hayes Valley had fashioned for her. I wanted her to taste the salty San Francisco rain and to think, but never know, if it was her tears or her sweat. I wanted her to punch exceptionally hard even though she had come from a bar after a few drinks and celebrating one of her girlfriend’s long deserved promotions. I wanted her to remember the way she has been held as she takes punches, never tensing, always taking. I wanted her to acknowledge them the same way she has taken the hands of past loves. I wanted her to be strong. To forget her wristwatch in the locker room. The same wristwatch her boss had bought her, on the first day of her second week at her new job in a new city, when he had questioned her loyalty. I wanted her to leave looking to attack her attacker. And I wanted a rain to pick up, to cool her hot head, when they never appeared. It might, maybe, with work, become a decent story. It is seemingly one dimensional, but it could be a start, or something. At least it’s a busy place to bury my mind. It’s just like I said, you don’t need an interesting life if you have diversion eyes. I mostly just blame how quickly the windows fogged up across the street as I waited for my bus in the rain. I waited with my hands as tight fists, remembering when they shared my jacket pockets with someone else.

"Five Stars! ....For readers who are looking for a book filled with great, thought-provoking human interest stories, Your Smallest Bones is unquestionably your next best read." - San Francisco Book Review